


dream back to summer

by orphan_account



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, cw: suicide ment, jewish derek nurse, sad ending :'(, unrequited feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-27 13:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6286297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they kiss, Dex calls it a mistake.  He does the last time, too.  It is a mistake - for Derek most of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not gonna lie this is one of the most emo things i've ever written... and i'm pretty emo. i love watching yall suffer though :)
> 
> title is from marcie by joni mitchell bc im just That Kind Of Guy™. enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of the lil jewish things that happen in these are things that yr jewish author does with their family. if you have any questions, i'm the number one person to ask!
> 
> i'm a slow writer, so this might take a while to get up, but i know where it's going. right now, just enjoy some cute holiday shenanigans.

Derek has always had a loose sort of relationship with his moms. There's Mama, who gave him his coltish skew of limbs when he's off the ice and the clean cut of his jawline; and then there's Mam, who gave him his obsession with dusty old records and poetry that doesn't rhyme.

(He has a dad, too, somewhere, who gave him his grey-green eyes and that ridiculous five o'clock shadow, but Derek doesn't care too much about him. His dad's not _family_ the same way Mama and Mam are.)

He drives home for Hanukkah freshman year; makes it back to New York on the second night and surprises his moms right as they're finishing reciting over the three glowing candles dripping wax down the arms of the menorah Bubbie and Zayde gave them when they got married.

They stand staring at the door for a moment, and then tackle him into the still-gently falling snow. Mama wraps her arms around his neck and laughs, and Mam buries her curly little head into his chest and laughs, and his heart swells full of love, and he laughs.

They go inside and make hot, fragrant tea, and Derek reheats a bowl of tomato soup that tastes like being eight years old again and laughs at the identical faces his moms make when he wipes the whole thing out in thirty seconds flat. He laughs, and he laughs, and he smiles until his face hurts, and he is so impossibly happy, like he never thought he'd be again after Elijah died. When they happen to catch the clock on the oven reading 11:11 and Mama exclaims that they should all make a wish, just like she always did when he was younger, he wishes that the little bubble he's in right now never bursts.

 

They move to the sitting room with their mugs of tea, and he digs in his duffel for his bag of presents. For the first night, they exchange their typical cookie cutters. He has a peacock for Mama, and a flamingo for Mam; and they give him the hockey stick they always threatened to track down, and then thinking about baking leads him into a tangent about Bitty, because really, his moms would love Bitty. Everyone loves Bitty. He's, like, 98% sure that it's scientifically impossible to _not_ love Bitty.

For the second night, he has some tea he picked up at Annie's for his Mama, and a record that he thought looked interesting for his Mam. His moms give him a new belt that will hopefully better fit his newly trim waist, which makes him almost choke on his tea when Mama says it with a wiggle of her eyebrows. Mam makes an appreciative sound as she runs her hand over his bicep, and he _does_ choke at that.

He feels a sharp longing for the softness of these sweet, wonderful women in his life, when he's away, when he's at Samwell, when he's inside of his own head, but Mam flicks the poofy part of his hair and tells him to go put her new record on, and he tamps the feeling down. He can be happy with the way things are. Don't pop the bubble, he reminds himself. Don't ruin this, too.

 

It's almost as if he never left, coming back, though he supposes that being away at Samwell is practically the same as being away at Andover. They spend their days lazily, lounging in the sunlight and reading in the mornings, catnapping in the afternoons, going out and spending the evenings on the town.

On the sixth night, they exchange poems instead of presents, like they always do, and go around telling each other what they were thankful for that year.

“I'm happy that Samwell is a good fit,” Derek says, content, and his moms smile appreciatively and nod in agreement.

“So am I,” Mama says warmly, and clasps his hand in hers, and if absence only makes the heart grow fonder, then he knows why this world feels perfect, why it's like nothing he's ever known before but always wanted, endless happiness, halcyon days.

* * *

It's Zose Hanukkah, and his family is finally, as Mam would say, “going full Jew.” He fries up a big plate of latkes and yelps every time the oil from the pan spits up at his arm. They light the shamash at nightfall, and they don't make blessings over the candles but they say the _Hanerot Halalu_ anyway.

Afterwards, they sing only the middle verses of _Ma'Oz Tzur,_ because they're secular and feel kinda weird talking about God, but they want to acknowledge the history of their people. Derek recognizes the familiar twinge of not belonging when he thinks of “his people,” since Mama was raised Southern Baptist and he has no clue about his dad, but when they harmonize together, with him at the bottom, Mama carrying the middle, and Mam's soaring soprano up top, he realizes that it means something else.

Their neighbor Ronnie comes over to take their holiday pictures, and they only dress up their upper halves, because that's all the camera is seeing, anyway. Mama perches the yarmulke he wore to his Bar Mitzvah on top of his head and forces him to don a sweater vest, but lets him keep his sweats on; she wears a gorgeous emerald satin dress and sweater socks. Mam is in a red tunic that reminds Derek of Lardo, for some reason, and she has it over her nightshirt, which makes the hem bunch up weird but doesn't mess with the photograph any.

They take their nice clothes off when Ronnie tells them that they're good and bundle into Mama's office. She slaps the pics onto the cards she had designed earlier and prints them out onto glossy photo paper, and Mam licks envelopes and sticks stamps, and Derek, who has the best handwriting out of the three of them, writes addresses. He makes one out to send to the Haus, writes _Season's Greetings from the Edelman-Nurse Clan!_ on the back, and walks down alone to send them off.

He forgets that it's the 24th, and the post office is a fucking shitshow, but his phone buzzes in his pocket and he spends his time in line scrolling through the pictures (and tastefully ignoring the chirps) everyone has been sending to the group chat.

There's Ransom, who started the thread, dressed to the nines for Christmas Eve service, holding a little candle dripping wax over a foil muffin tin liner in his hand; and Holster in a cozy living room with his similarly tow-headed sisters, all four flashing identical toothy grins.

There's Lardo at the bottom of a ginormous sibling dogpile; Shitty in a nice suit with his hair pulled back into a bun looking unsure whether to commit suicide, homicide, or both. Bitty sends a selfie in front of a table absolutely covered by baked goods, and Jack snaps a candid shot of his ridiculously attractive parents laughing and looking just plain ridiculous.

Chowder's metal-mouthed smile beams from a photo he takes overlooking the Bay Area, all the fog and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance; and then there's Dex by a Christmas tree with someone who can only be his little brother on his shoulders, the same autumnal hair and exuberance of freckles and awkward sideways smirk. Derek holds his finger over than one and chooses to “Save,” and then, after some consideration, presses again and selects “Delete.”

Ronnie texts him the photos from earlier, and he chooses the one he likes best. He's in the middle, yarmulke finally flattening some of his curls, and he may have an argyle sweater vest on like he's taking his middle school class picture, but even underneath that and his button-down he looks fucking _swole_. Mama to his right is stately and beautiful, the green of her dress gorgeous against her coffee-colored skin, her long hair swept into an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck. Mam is at his left, and if his Mama looks like a queen, she looks like a cherub, youthful and rosy-cheeked and sweet, a halo of chestnut ringlets around her head, though there's a sharpness to her eyes that doesn't betray her mind.

It's a picture, but it's just plain picturesque. The menorah is fully lit on the sideboard behind them, the casement windows over their heads dusted lightly with snow. He has his arms around Mam's shoulders and Mama's waist, and they're all grinning like crazy. They look happy. They _are_ happy.

 _Chag Urim Sameach!_ he types out underneath the attachment, and hits send. He's assaulted almost immediately by the team's replies.

 _Your family is GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!! (ಥДಥ)_ , Bitty sends right away.

Jack writes, _Nice. Happy Hanukkah._

 _nursey, what the hell. you and your precious lil moms are making us all look bad._   That one's from Ransom.

Shitty responds, _wow... nice sweater dingus... think i recgonize that 1 frm prep scool…_

 _I like your hat :D_ If it was anyone other than Chowder he might have been mad, but he knows that he's not getting chirped. That's just… Chowder.

“Can I help you?” asks the lady at the counter. He hadn't even realized that he was to the front of the line.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry. Just these, please.” He slides the letters across the counter, exchanges pleasantries, and trudges back home through the snow, but his heart is full and light. At some point in the night, the whole team ends up making some comment or another, with one exception. _√ Seen by everyone_ , it reads at the bottom of the screen. Dex never says a thing.

* * *

There's another selfie chain on New Year's Eve. Lardo, Shitty, Ransom, and Holster are already back at the Haus, and they send a photo of the lot of them together wearing ridiculous “2015” sunglasses and leis, brandishing party blowers. It's still 2014 in California, so Chowder pretends to pout in his pic, though his dimples betray him. Dex is on a boat off of the coast a little ways, and the pictures he sends of the fireworks hardly look like fireworks at all, more like stars.

Jack takes a subtle jacket pocket photo of the party he's at, surrounded by an alarming amount of hockey royalty loitering about and drinking champagne. Bitty reciprocates with another table covered in various pies. Derek can almost hear the legs creaking under the weight.

Mama is taking a last-minute order downtown, but he's still with his Mam. He hoists her onto his back, which makes her laugh for a good quarter of an hour, because how ridiculous is it that he's a foot taller than she is? That's not how parenting's supposed to work. They take a photo like that, and he's impressed (though unsurprised) by how good they look.

 _Back at it again with your family of fucking models, Nurse?_ Lardo confirms, which makes Mam crack up for another ten minutes, and then she almost falls off of the couch laughing when Holster says _oh my god, chill. we get it. you live in a west elm catalog._

“Your new friends seem great,” Mam says with a smile, and he smiles back.

In his hand, his phone buzzes. _Alright, that's cute_. It's begrudging, but it's from Dex.

“They are,” he says.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [here's nursey refusing to give dex any personal space](http://41.media.tumblr.com/6ec00eb8d0fcc2ed38ff8de6c43322cf/tumblr_inline_nsxxbdT7gU1rzsdur_1280.png), as mentioned by his mama.
> 
> (his relationship w/ elijah + that character will be explained. we'll get there kidds.)
> 
> this is a pretty weak chapter, so i'm real sorry about that. slow burn is the worst. but, bonus, new character introduced?? what?!??! one of my ocs??????? amazing!!!!!!!

“I... think I'm in love,” he says, and all of it comes immediately crashing around his ears.

His moms smile at him, wait until after dinner to say anything else. He's leaving the day after tomorrow. Something had to come out, he tells himself, if only because he can't bear the weight of this alone. He'd always been selfish.

“So? Tell us about 'em.” Mam and Mama are wrapped up together on the couch under the comforter they took off of their bed. It's olive green silk and intricately embroidered with a rapturous mosaic of flowers and vines and leaves. Derek focuses his eyes right on a loose thread near one of the scalloped edges.

“His name is De- uh, Will. He's on my team; my partner. He loves computers and doing stupid stuff like drinking nothing but five-hour energy shots for a week straight and trying to do headstands on the ice. All we do is fight, and I'm, like, ninety percent sure that he's a card-carrying Republican.”

“Ouch, you lost me,” Mama says with a wince. “He must really be somethin' if you're willing to overlook that.”

“I think you've seen pics. Here.” He fishes his phone out of his pocket and scrolls until he finds the photo from Hausgiving of him, Dex, and Chowder. “He's the one in… in the middle.”

“The redhead with the pie who you're refusing to give personal space?”

“Yeah.”

“I figured. The cutie with the braces isn't really your type.”

“Mama, really?”

“Sorry, sweetie. He isn't, though.”

“My own mother,” he begins dramatically, and then sobers up. “It's… not good, though. I mean, he's straight. Really straight, and kind of a homophobe, too.”

“We've all had those, honey,” Mam says sympathetically, and gestures for him to come up and sit between them. For a moment, he's… not happy, exactly, but unafraid. It doesn't go away until the next morning, when they wake up on the couch the way they fell asleep, still fully clothed, tangled together under the comforter.

“I have to leave today,” he says through a yawn, running his fingers through his hair and scratching his head.

His moms groan, but stand and sleepily put the coffee on while he showers. Before he knows it, he's out the door and driving back to Samwell, Mam's lipstick smudged on his cheek and Mama's on his forehead. In the car he listens to the Motown boxset he got fourth night, and then he turns the radio on for a while, and then he puts in an old mix CD Eli made for him when they were fourteen or fifteen.

Phil Ochs sings about being gone one day, and the words spin through his head, and it hurts him how prophetic they were at the time. Even after two years, the ache in his chest is almost too much for him to take. His heart knows exactly what to tell his head to upset him, and he cries all the way down the I-90.

When the CD plays through all the way, it starts to play again, and Derek turns it off. He sits in silence for the remaining hour until he arrives back at Samwell, and when he parks under the carport outside of his dorm, he presses his forehead against the steering wheel for a moment until his head clears enough for him to go inside.

His roommate Valentín is still with his family out West, and so he has the room to himself for the night. He heats up some of the oriental flavored ramen, which is kinda fucking gross, but it's the only vegetarian flavor the cheap brand makes, and he's not going to take more from his moms than he has to. After moping around for a while and thinking about the playoffs, he decides to go to bed. It's been a long day.

* * *

Dex comes back the next day, and being around his family must have been miserable because he's pissier than usual, which is saying something. Derek stays as far out of his way as he can manage. He's really not a combative person; there's just something about Dex that makes him want to tear his hair out and yell until his lungs are burning.

They end up getting in a fight anyway, when they're leaving their first practice after returning. Chowder and Bitty have identical sad, disappointed expressions on their faces, which only makes Derek feel worse. After their argument, he mutters his customary “Chill, Dex,” and goes back to his room and cries. When Valentín asks how he's doing after sweeping into the room at half past midnight, he doesn't say anything.

The next morning he apologizes to Valentín with his head down. Against his better judgement, he adds, “I'm just having… problems with a friend. With Dex. You've met him, right?”

“Oh, Will. Yeah, he's a nice guy. We have Quantitative Reasoning together.” He pauses for a second, then adds, “I think I'm gonna ask him out for coffee sometime. Jeanne and I broke things off over the break, so I'm a free agent.”

“Shit, man, I'm sorry. You two seemed like you were working out great.”

“Yeah, I mean, we were, but… the whole long distance thing wasn't ever going to work. It's, like, a six hour flight if I ever want to visit her, or thirty-five if I drive. Even if we call or Skype we're two timezones apart. She's doing pre-med and she's trying to maintain her 4.0 and everything, and we just decided that it was too much for us to manage. You don't mind that I'm asking Will out, even though you're best bros and stuff, right?”

“We're not best bros. And he's his own person, man. The only reason you two wouldn't go out would be him saying no.”

“You sure, D?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it might just be hockey, but you talk about him non-stop. It's just, like, Dex this, Dex that, Dex is always getting on my nerves, Dex is always pushing all my buttons, Dex is the worst, I hate Dex, I hope I never see Dex's stupid face again. I always thought that you two were-”

“Why would you think that?” Derek asks cooly. “All I got from that was a strong dislike.”

“Well, you know. They always say, like, sometimes when you really like somebody, it just makes you… angry. Like, sometimes you're angry because you don't want to like them, or you're angry at yourself because you don't want to get hurt again, or you're angry because they don't like you back or something, right?”

“That's not what's happening between us, dude. Seriously.”

“Okay, man. Well, since you aren't objecting, I'm asking Will if he wants to go to Annie's with me after class tomorrow.”

“I hope you have fun. Night, V.” With perhaps more force than entirely necessary, Derek shuts his book and flips his light off, bundling into bed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> derek "nursey" nurse is a massive fucking disaster and i hate him. square up, nurse. anyway, he fucks up in the chapter. so... yep. murder him.
> 
> this chapter was kinda cobbled together so there are a lot of those lil lines. sorry bout that. i kinda hate those. also, this is a short one. i say that every time. i realize now that i should have just written this whole thing and then posted it as one 10k fic instead of, like, seven mini-chapters. sorry guys.
> 
> enjoy!!!!

Dex and Valentín go on their coffee date the next day. Derek doesn't ask either of them how it goes, but he assumes well, because the next time he sees both of them, they look happy. A few days later, they go again, and then again and again.

Derek is happy for them. Really, he is. He's not bitter. He spends more time around the Haus. He teaches Bitty some of Mama's best recipes (after he's been sworn to secrecy), and has serious talks with Shitty and Ransom about racism and sexism and homophobia and hockey. He even bonds with Jack, over Fleetwood Mac – that's a story for the grandkids, he thinks. Stevie Nicks brought your Zayde and Jack Zimmermann (yes, _that_ Jack Zimmerman) together.

Things aren't weird between him and Valentín, either. He can be a massive douche sometimes, but he's not a _complete_ dick, for Christ's sake. They invite Holster over when Ransom is cramming and they have movie nights, and put on _Promiscuous Girl_ at top volume and dance until their next door neighbors bang on the walls and yell at them to shut up already.

He's in college. He's living the college experience. That's all that's happening. Sometimes things don't work out in college relationships, he promises himself. He's not sure if he's talking about his relationship with Dex, or Dex's relationship with Valentín. Either way, he doesn't want to think about it for too long.

* * *

They lose the playoffs.

* * *

Derek risks putting a hand against the small of Dex's back as they go into the locker room, and it isn't shrugged off. On the bus home that night, no one sleeps. Everything is hushed and quiet and muffled, and almost everyone cries, but almost no one admits to it. Derek sits next to Chowder and wraps him in his arms until he's done sobbing. He doesn't trust himself to be around Dex right now.

The second they're back at Samwell, he carries Chowder's gear back to his room for him, and then makes a bee-line for his own dorm. Dex beat him to the punch, he realizes. The door is open a crack, and staring through it, he sees Dex collapsed against Valentín. Valentín murmurs something too soft to hear, and Dex lets himself be folded into his arms. They stay that way for a long moment, Valentín gently rubbing at the small of his back in the same place Derek had rested his hand earlier, and then he hears Dex say, “Kiss me, please, I-” as he desperately slips his fingers through Valentín's hair. He steps out into the hall before either of them notice him, and goes back to Chowder's room.

Chowder looks surprised when he shows up at his door, but he pulls him into bed with him, and Derek understands that all he wants out of this is comfort, so he gives it to him. They wrap up under the duvet, and Chowder clutches the front of Derek's shirt and tangles their legs together and cries.

“It's not your fault,” he whispers, over and over again, like a mantra, and Chowder presses his wet face into his collarbone and wraps his arms around his body. Derek does what his moms used to do when he was upset; he strokes the back of Chowder's head and squeezes him against his chest to reassure him that he's there. Right before they fall asleep, he presses a gentle kiss to the soft, wispy hair lying over Chowder's forehead, and he thinks, _Dex_.

* * *

Being with Valentín is good for Dex. He's softer, less aggressive. He'll still fight, but it's more playful than hurtful now. He's lost his edge. Derek hates it.

He finds that he's taken the role of aggressor on – he's spent enough time around Dex by now to know what to say to push his buttons. Around Spring C, he finally snaps.

“What the hell is your problem, Nurse!” he yells. It's just the two of them, lounging around Derek's room. Dex is waiting for Valentín to come back from one of his classes, and Derek has nothing better to do. “Every time you're around me and Valentín you look like you're going to murder one of us. Do you have a problem with gay people or something? God, just... stop acting like this all the time. Please!”

“Why would _I_ have a problem with gay people, Dex? I have two moms for fuck's sake, I'm not the Samwell Republican here!”

“Are you _still_ hung up on that? God, you're… you're _pathetic_. I thought we connected well on the ice, but if you don't agree, just fucking say so. We don't have to keep doing this.”

“That's-” Derek's voice cracks. “That's not it.” Before he can help it, his lips are on Dex's. He allows himself to believe that Dex is kissing back, if only for a moment.

“You look like the sun,” he had told him once, simply, because he did, radiant and bright and glowing, like he was giving life to everything on the entire planet. Dex had laughed.

“It's the hair, isn't it?” he asked, and Derek wanted desperately to yell, to scream, to shout, “ _That's not it at all!_ ” because it wasn't.

Instead, he had laughed, and smiled, and replied as lightly as he was able, “Yep.”

Dex looks like a sky at sunset. He looks like autumn, he looks like spring, he looks like summer. Derek writes poems upon poems for him in that instant, words after words colliding into each other, trying to express what he can't ever say.

They break apart, breathing heavily, and Dex looks at him with something resembling fear in his eyes. Derek doesn't know why, but it makes him feel like he's going to be sick, maybe.

“I'm sorry,” Derek whispers. Dex doesn't rise to the bait. He turns and storms out of the room, slamming the door hard behind himself, and Derek knows, with a deep, sinking certainty in the pit of his stomach, that he is never going to stop ruining things for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! this is beta read by... myself. so if any of you happen to catch anything, please tell me, because i'm prone to mistakes. yell at me in the comments, etc. thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant live without bad tropes. so here's one of my favorites: the road trip. being forced to spend long hours cooped up together, strange roadside americana, junk food - the list goes on.
> 
> this chapter is a lil rushed but i'm just... so ready for these two losers to make up already so i can make yall suffer. the premise seems unrealistic, but this is pretty much word for word something that i was roped into doing last summer, so i can guarantee that it's a real thing that happens to real people.
> 
> [this](http://8tracks.com/nervoushay/you-ve-really-got-a-hold-on-me) is what they're listening to in the car. i'm unstoppable.

Freshman year ends. Dex avoids Derek, and he doesn't try to stop him. It's okay, though. They're all busy, with finals and packing up their things and preparing for the seniors to graduate. He'd only spent a year with Shitty and Jack, but he had massive respect for them both, both on and off the ice. Ransom and Holster are chosen as the captains for next year, and somehow he isn't surprised. Anything that has any possibility of splitting those two apart only brings them closer. All of it is such a blur that he accidentally agrees to one of Chowder's schemes.

 

He's got all of his stuff boxed up and ready to go when Chowder knocks on his door.

“Let's go!” he exclaims, and Derek draws a blank.

“I'm sorry, what?”

Chowder looks at him, confused. “Me and Valentín already put our things in the back of your car. It's really nice of you to agree to take us, so thanks.”

“I-”

“When are we leaving?” he hears Dex say as he walks in, and accidentally looks up and locks eyes with him. He can't tell who looks away first.

“Uh. When everyone's stuff is packed up, I guess.” What he can glean is that, somehow, he agreed to drive Chowder and Valentín cross-country, and bring Dex along, and somehow everyone involved had agreed and decided that it was a reasonable idea. Great. This is _exactly_ why he bought a pickup truck.

The Haus doesn't actually have to be emptied out like the dorms do, so he and Dex leave their stuff there. They'll just… pick it up on the way back or something. Jesus Christ, they haven't even left yet and he's already regretting everything he's going to do.

Chowder calls shotgun, surprising no one, and draws the course he wants to take on the atlas that was under his seat. Derek hopes that the roads he marked are still open. He's pretty sure that road map was under the seat when he bought the truck.

“I asked Bitty to make us snacks, so I think we'll be set until at least Arkansas.”

“God bless him, honestly, I don't know what we would do without him.”

“Uh, guys?” Everyone turns to look at Valentín, who has a crooked, confused grin on his face. “Who's Bitty?”

“Oh, you poor soul,” Chowder mutters.

“Bitty is… the only good man ever born,” Derek begins grandiosely.

“A Catholic saint,” Dex adds, and they make eye contact and grin, like they used to after a good assist, if only for a split second. Dex _definitely_ looks away first from that one.

“Eric Richard Bittle is the closest thing that this world has to God.”

“Okay?”

“He's on the team, a left winger, and that means nothing to you because you don't play hockey. Um. He's small and gay and loves baking, and I'm pretty sure he has a shrine to Beyoncé in his room.”

“He's so soft and sweet and gorgeous. I love him,” Chowder finishes breathlessly.

“Me, too,” Derek says solemnly.

“Same.”

“Wow. So, tiny gay Beyoncé baker? Basically Jesus?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

“Wait. Try this.” Chowder passes him a mini-pie, and they all sit in the parking lot, watching intently as Valentín takes a delicate bite.

“Okay. Wow, that's – wow.” Eyes wide, he stuffs the rest of the pie in his mouth. “Okay, that was amazing. I'm still not sure I understand your whole hockey cult, but if Bitty is there I'm joining.”

“Right? I registered the second I tasted one of those. On my phone and everything.”

“I don't blame you. That's – okay. Bitty. I get it.”

“We can leave now,” Dex points out.

“Thanks,” Derek grumbles.

They listen to the radio for a while, but after the third Taylor Swift song Dex is begging for the CD book.

“What do you have against full albums by individual artists?”

“Nothing! I just… have a lot of mix CDs. Dude, if you don't like it, I doubt Chowder would oppose listening to _Shake It Off_ again. And Valentín and I hung out with Holster enough last year that we can take it.”

“Fine. Should I do _Road Trip_ or _Cali_? Because, I mean, we're going on a road trip, but we're going to California, so...”

“Dude, we're going to be the car for, like, forty-five hours. Let's save those until we actually, like, get out there. Pick one of the others.”

“Cool.” He passes up a CD, and Chowder sticks it into the deck, which is duct taped to the dash. “Nurse, your car is shit, by the way. Couldn't remember if I told you yet or not.”

“Thanks, Dex. Hadn't noticed.”

The CD is one Mama made for him. Everything is doo wop and Motown, horn sections and harmonies, unrequited feelings and relationships gone bad and being a teenager in love. They're all quiet, and it's peaceful and calm. Saundra Mallet Edwards sings that heaven must have sent her lover, and Chowder sticks his head out the window like a dog, and night falls peacefully.

Somewhere in central Pennsylvania Dex makes Derek get out for a while, so he goes to sit in the back, slumped against the pile of pillows stacked in the middle, and falls asleep. He talks very quietly in his sleep, and shakes, and cries, and Dex wants to say something; wake him up, maybe, but instead he drives.

 

Chowder takes over in Columbus, and they stop in Nashville and walk around for a little bit to get circulation going in their legs again. Valentín drives until they're somewhere in Arkansas, and Derek takes back over until Oklahoma City. The whole situation is surprisingly comfortable. Everywhere they go is strange and tawdry, diners with jukeboxes and roadside attractions and farmer's stands.

“This is what America is really about,” Derek says poetically somewhere in Texas. “Buildings shaped like objects, lawn flamingos, giant gas stations.”

“Tacky kitsch. Nothing like it,” Valentín agrees. “That's the West's true heritage.”

“The words you use are too big,” Chowder mumbles from his pile of blankets.

“English majors. Can't stand you.”

“Shove it, Dex,” Derek says, but there's no venom to it. Being in such close quarters for such a long time has forced them to be civil, and even friendly. Derek feels like Chowder planned this specifically to spite them, but then again, there isn't a malevolent bone in that boy's body.

 

Dex drives to Albuquerque, and then Chowder drives to Denver, and then Valentín drives to Salt Lake City, and he's home. They walk around for a little, and Valentín shows them the sights – where he went to high school, his favorite coffee spot, a weird garden right in the middle of the shopping district. It's a small, cute city, surrounded on all sides by mountains and elaborately painted Victorian houses with gingerbread trim. Valentín's house is small and cute, as is his family, as is the expression on his face when he asks Dex to come over and talk to him for a moment right before they head out.

“Did he have anything good to say?” Derek asks when he returns with the corners of his mouth bent down into a grimace.

“No,” he mutters, shoving his hands into his pockets. Derek raises his eyebrows, but doesn't push it.

He drives them halfway through Nevada before Dex takes over, and then Chowder sagely steps in around Sacramento to handle the California traffic.

It's Dex's first time on the West Coast, and everything is strange and new to him. Chowder's family is lovely and sweet and lavishes them all with attention. His little sister takes a liking to Dex right away and follows him around constantly, pestering him with questions. He doesn't seem irritated, though – on the contrary, really. Derek remembers the photo he'd sent on Christmas, with his little brother on his shoulders.

The night before they're set to head out, Dex and Derek are trying to get to sleep on futons in the living room. They talk, a little bit. It's forced, a little bit. Whatever.

Derek is staring up at the ceiling, chatting Dex's ear off because he's physically incapable of shutting up, mostly. “Man, I love it out here. Everything is so new and laid back. New York is so stuffy and old.” There's a pause, and then he says, “Dude, let's go to L.A,” as a joke, mostly.

There's a pause, and then Dex says, “Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

"Cool."

"Go to bed, Dex."

"You first."

"Yeah, alright, whatever."  When he falls asleep, it's with something resembling a smile on his face.  He doesn't look over at Dex, but he's pretty sure he's smiling, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! i promise they'll do something soon.
> 
> also, valentín is from slc, like yours truly. i was going to have him be from oregon or smth, but then i realized i could give a shout out to my hometown in emotional gay short story form, so i did. god. writing is too much power for any one person to handle.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOW LONG AM I GOING TO DRAG OUT THIS ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
> anyway, enjoy this chapter. it's rushed again but i don't care. just let my gay kids be happy.

Dex has never been to California. Derek already knows it, but it still feels crazy to think about. California is, like, the closest thing America has to Mecca. It's everything cool about the U.S. and then some, rolled into one state.

He says as much to Dex, which makes him roll his eyes, but that's it. There's a new peace between them, so fragile that a breath could break it, especially with no one between them to stop things before they get too bad.

But, restatement: Dex has never been to California, which is just fucking unacceptable. There are so many places to go. Chowder has already dragged them to all of the touristy places around San Francisco – the pier, Alcatraz, Chinatown, out to Silicon Valley and even to Stanford – but that's just San Francisco.

Dex admits that he's not a huge fan of hiking (“I don't know, I just don't… exercise for fun, I guess.” “Dex, you're literally a NCAA athlete. Exercise is supposed to be the _only_ thing you do for fun.” “God, you sound like Jack. You gonna tell me to eat more protein next?” “Oh, shut up.”), which only means that Derek plans the route to involve as many national parks as possible.

Yosemite is nice, but crowded beyond belief. Ditto for Redwoods. They never actually listened to the _Cali_ CD when they were heading over, but Dex puts it in while they're driving down the coast, and they roll the windows down, and Derek thinks about how much of a Teen Movie Moment™ he's having, a smile plastered on his face.

“Why do you have a California mix CD, by the way?” Dex asks after the second or third listen-through. “Seems kinda weird for such an avid New Yorker.”

“Oh, yeah, I drove out here two summers ago with my best friend.”

“Who's your best friend?”

Derek freezes, his stupid big grin suddenly stretching his cheeks uncomfortably. “He doesn't go to Samwell, you wouldn't know him.”

“Yeah, I think I would have noticed if you had any real friends, since you're such a massive loser,” he snorts. "What's his name?”

“Eli,” Derek says carefully. "Well, Elijah, I guess, but we just called him Eli for short.”

As usual, Dex is completely clueless. “Called? Did he change it?”

“He's dead, Dex,” Derek grits out through his teeth. Suddenly the Best Coast blaring from the console is too much, and he jams the volume wheel to turn it off.

Dex's eyes are wide and filled with a pity Derek doesn't want. “Shit, Nursey, I'm- I'm sorry. I had no idea, I mean-”

“It's fine.”

“No, it really isn't, oh my God. I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have. I'm so terrible about doing that, Jesus, sorry.”

“It's fine, man.” He sighs. “I figure it had to come out at some point or another anyway.”

There's a pause, and then Dex says,“I'm sorry it had to be me who you told,” very, very quietly.

Derek breathes out through his nose. “You don't have to say it like that. I don't, like, hate you, you know? Give me some credit here.”

“I-” Dex begins, and cuts himself off. “Listen. I'm sorry that I made things weird between us.”

“Dude, really? That was all my fault. I mean, I kissed you without asking for consent first, which is just really uncool in the first place, and on top of that you have a boyfriend and everything and you're both my friends, so I shouldn't have. I'm sorry.”

“Man, I never thought I'd get a real apology from you,” Dex says with a rueful laugh. “But I wasn't… completely honest with you, earlier. Valentín did tell me something earlier. Uh, he's- he's not coming back to Samwell in the fall.”

“What?” Derek asks, staring at him dumbfounded. “What do you mean?”

“Keep your eyes on the road, dumbass! He's too far away from his family, and he's kinda thinking he wants to pick things back up with his old girlfriend in Utah, so he's staying there.”

“You mean...”

“God, for someone so smart you're really fucking stupid sometimes. Pull out here.”

Derek obligingly parks the car on the side of the road. They're somewhere around Big Sur, and everything is bright and beautiful. The ocean below is blue and shimmering. All of his attention is on Dex.

“Look, Nurse, I know… I know this is a mistake, and I know I'm going to regret this, but-”

Dex kisses the beginnings of a response off of Derek's lips.  It's nothing like their only other kiss – Derek had been aggressive and insistent and desperate, but Dex is tentative and sweet, so unlike he normally is. Their hands are cupping each other's cheeks when they draw away, and everything is breathless and soft and gentle.

A thousand questions Derek wants to ask suddenly flood his head. _“Am I going to be your big gay experiment?_ ” and “ _Am I your rebound?_ ” and _“Why did you do that?”_ are the most common.

“Dude, what the fuck,” is what he settles on, which Dex rewards with a gratuitous blush.

“You can't call me dude after we just kissed,” he mumbles. “That's… super weird, dude.”

“You just did it, too,” Derek points out, and Dex rolls his eyes in response.

“I don't know, okay? I just… I've been thinking about doing that since you did, and I kinda feel like I was before, too.”

“Cool.” Derek decides to take it in stride instead of going into a Massive Gay Panic, which is usually his top choice whenever anything goes wrong. “Uh, Google Maps is telling me that we can make it to L.A. in five hours. You want to get something to eat there and spend the night?”

“Sure. I'm just really excited to sleep in a real bed, honestly.”

“Same, man. The car seat and futon combo, even compared to a shitty college mattress, 's a real back killer.”

“So... how long are we gonna be out on the road like this?”

“Well, my moms don't care when I get back, and I know your parents are pretty indifferent, too. But I only have twenty CDs in the car, so we've probably got a week left before we lose it completely.”

“Cool.”

Derek starts the car and sets off again back down the highway. He has a feeling that the way home is going to be a lot better than the way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go... they're happy for a little. i'm gonna keep dragging this road trip out forever. but they kissed! that's good! well, for now. thanks for reading guys! sorry that i accidentally made this part long. i should probably plan these chapters but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're happy for, like, ten whole minutes of this chapter, so you're welcome, lol. milk it for what it's worth.
> 
> sorry this chapter took soooooo looooooong to get up!!!!! it was the end of my quarter and i just gotta get that 4.0 (muscle emoji)
> 
> anyway, just a quick warning: d talks rather insensitively about suicide in this chapter! it's not a lot, and it's something that yours truly once said when in the same situation, but just keep urselves safe qties!!!!!
> 
> if you don't want to read this chapter [here's a summary](https://twitter.com/FemalePains/status/707347885688561664)

Derek's moms have a lot of coffee table books, and his favorite has a big a section somewhere near the middle that's all Los Angeles in the seventies. Those photos are way cooler than the reality of the present day. Everyone in them wears roller skates and super short shorts, and there are surfboards under every arm and sunglasses on every face. But there's a similar feeling to all of those photos, and he can feel it now. It's _excitement_.

He knows he ought to be used it by now, after living in New York City for eighteen years, but he doesn't think he'll ever adjust to the bustle of the city, the clashing food smells from every corner, the rustle of shoulders together, the life that bursts from every seam. Dex is wide-eyed and nervous, like he's never seen this many people in one place before, which, Derek realizes, he probably hasn't.

“Dude, what are we gonna do first?” he says, and Dex allows a bashful grin to slip from the corner of his mouth.

“I think I should get something in my stomach before I do anything else.”

“'Swawesome.”

Dex ends up choosing a taqueria with a line out the door, and as they're waiting, everything between them is suddenly comfortable, none of the tension that usually makes their exchanges stiff and snappish. Their shoulders brush casually as they stand together, and Derek languidly tells him a story about his Mam in college.

They eat, and go down to the beach, which is gross and crowded but still kinda fun. Derek jokes about going surfing, which Dex wrinkles his nose at. It's funny how _right_ it looks for him to be there, though, Derek thinks. He looks like his heart belongs to the sea. His eyes are same color as the sun setting against the horizon, his freckles dotted across his face like the softer waves rippling farther out. Even his breath is synchronized to the ocean, his chest rising and falling under his t-shirt with the same rhythm the water laps against the shore.

“What are you lookin' at?” Dex asks teasingly, and Derek shoves him, playfully, but still a little harder than he meant to.

“Oh, you know, just thinking about absolutely pwning you when we go surfing tomorrow,” he responds lightly, and Dex responds as he expected, shouting at him that there is no way in hell he's going surfing, Nurse! Stop disrespecting him like this!

And he thinks: _I only have to hold on a little while longer_. He thinks: _I don't think I want to keep feeling this._ He thinks: _Things can't be like they were before._

* * *

They stay in L.A. for two days. Derek doesn't want to, like, DTR or anything, but he feels pretty confident that he and Dex have _something._ They kiss sometimes, and do more, sometimes, and they don't fight, not really. It's comfortable. They don't do the weird locker room thing anymore when they get dressed or when they go to the beach. Dex blushes a lot, which is way cuter than it has any right to be.

Nevada is a pale blur, and so is most of Utah, though they stop at Arches for an afternoon and go hiking. Derek does the thing he hates when people hike with their shirts off, but he doesn't really care. He basically lives in a frat house. He wears snapbacks. Shitty would have a better word for it, but he's totally a stereotypical douchebro.

Whatever. He just spent a straight year with Ransom and Holster; he has an excuse. And besides, the flustered flush that he can see spreading all the way below Dex's collar makes it worth it.

 

Derek finally puts his road trip CD in a few days later. The first song begins loudly and suddenly, and he whistles along to the harmonica.

“Dude, I actually like this song,” Dex admits after a second.

“You? A Bruce Springsteen fan? I'm… not surprised, honestly.”

“Whatever. I know that tone of condescension. We can't all be as intellectual and hip as you.”

“Bro! I totally pegged you for a mega dadrock fan. Did you ever ask Jack about it? Guy has seen, like, everyone you can possibly think of. He was telling me about having lunch with Nancy Wilson a while ago – fuckin' crazy, man.”

“Ugh, I make fun of you for being rich, but Jack is... intolerably wealthy.”

“Intolerably! That's a big word, little Willy, you deserve a gold star for that one.”

“Fuck off,” Dex mumbles.

“Nah, you're right, though,” Derek says once he's done cracking up. “I snuck into his room right after he signed and I don't even want to _think_ about how many zeroes that contract had on it.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm… I'm sorry,” Derek manages after a little bit.

“What for?”

“Dude, I just… you're right, you know? It's fucked that some people are so rich when some people just aren't and there's no reason why, and I guess I just feel guilty for, like, going to a private school and living in this super pricey place, you know? Especially when some people don't have _anything_.”

“Wow.” Dex stares out the window for a while. They're somewhere in Nebraska. There isn't much to see. “Look, if you had said that to me at the beginning of the year, I would have _gladly_ beat your ass for it. But I talked to Shitty a lot, and… okay. I'm sorry I'm white and you're not, right?”

“Dude, why? You don't have any-”

“Right! That's just it. Neither of us can really help that stuff. You probably could have been less of a douche about it, but it's not your fault that you're rich, or that I'm white, or that you're good at writing and I'm good at computers, or that we both like dudes. We don't have any control over that kind of thing, so we just have to… live with it, ya know?”

“Yeah,” Derek says.

* * *

“Do you ever wish you could… be someone you're not?” Dex blurts suddenly one day, his hands gripping the steering wheel.

“Sure,” Derek says, shaking some Corn Nuts into his mouth. “All the time. Like, 'Damn, I wish I was Beyoncé,' or “Damn, I wish I was Jay-Z so I could be married to Beyoncé,' or 'Damn, I wish I was Blue Ivy so I could be Beyoncé's child.'”

“Not Beyoncé level, though. _Anyone_ level. Like, you'd give everything to just… be someone else. You'd be someone real. You'd be a book character. You'd be someone from a movie, or someone you see walking down the street, anybody. All you really want is to be… not you, I guess.”

Derek pauses, Corn Nuts still poised gracefully over his face. “No. Dude, _no_ , not at all.” Dex flinched, and he added, “I have bad days, and bad things happen to me, but bad things happen to everybody. Doesn't matter if you're real or not, that's just how being alive is.”

“Nothing that bad has ever even happened to me,” Dex confesses in a whisper, staring down at his hands. “No one I care about has died, really. My relationship with my parents is fine. I just… wish I wasn't myself.”

An inkling of understanding begins to tug at the edge of Derek's thoughts. “Dude, do you wish you could be _me_?”

“No! I mean, yes- I mean no. I don't know.”

“That's... kinda weird but kinda flattering. Thanks, dude.”

“It's not like that. I mean, I wish I could be Chowder, too, or Bitty, or Lardo, too. But it's just… man. Your family seems incredible, and you're rich and hot, and you're always so comfortable with yourself. Like, you wore a _sweater vest_ and you looked good. That's so unfair, what the fuck.”

“Why, I do declare! Mr. Poindexter, are you _jealous_?”

“Yes! I just- agh!” He presses his forehead to the wheel for a moment and groans. “I don't know how to explain it. I don't know why.”

“I think I do,” Derek says seriously after a moment. “You're not out to your parents yet, are you?”

“No,” Dex whispers.

“Dex-” Derek pauses. “Will...”

Dex stiffens like he's been burned. “Shove it, Nursey,” he mutters, and sets his eyes on the road. He doesn't speak more than monosyllables for the rest of the evening.

* * *

The South is a mass hallucination of fried food and drawling voices. Derek thinks about going down to Louisiana to visit Mama's family, but New Orleans is too far south to be reasonable. They joke about visiting Bitty in Georgia, but if anyone deserves a break, he does, so they give him his peace. It's nothing but traffic all the way up the East Coast, and they're back to Samwell all too soon for Derek's liking.

The Haus is cleared out, with the exception of their stuff piled up in the middle of the living room, on the gross green couch. Getting it into the back of his truck is simple enough, and they're done before noon.

“You think Faber is open?” Derek jokes. They know it isn't, but they walk down to check anyway. The doors are locked, in front and in back, so they go to Annie's and get lunch.

For a moment, Derek lets himself wonder if they could be like this when classes start back up again. It would be simple, he thinks. Coffee at Annie's, lazy afternoons at the Haus. Nights spent together in his single near the South Quad.

He has his arm slung over Dex's shoulder when Chowder calls, and the second the phone rings Dex flings the arm away and jumps to his feet.

“What's up, Chow?” he says, walking out of the room and pacing up and down the hall while he laughs over the phone. Derek pulls his own phone out of his pocket and scrolls through his notifications.

There's a pic in the group chat from Jack and Bitty, a goofy photo that someone must have taken for them. Jack is giving Bitty a piggyback ride, and they're both beaming at the camera. Bitty has a new scattering of summer freckles across the bridge of his nose, and Jack's eyes look bright and calm like they never are, even though they're just pixels. They look happy.

Derek turns his phone off and shoves it back into his pocket.

 

Dex wants to get home for the Fourth of July, so they plan to leave Samwell on the third. The night of the second, they get into bed together. Dex is impatient and brusque, which somehow doesn't surprise Derek at all.

“Dude, what are we?” Derek asks as they lay together in the afterglow.

“We could try dating, maybe? So, like, boyfriends? But also I don't think I could put up with your shit all the time, so, like an open relationship or something. FWB? I don't know, man.”

“Cool.”

They lay down next to each other. Derek puts some quiet music on his phone, and it plays soothingly in the background. Dex is surprisingly cuddly, and he intertwines their fingers, their legs, their arms. His eyes close the second his head hits the pillow, and it seems like he's sleeping. His breathing shallows, his face relaxes into something that makes him seem young. He _is_ young, but- Derek knows what he's trying to say. That's enough.

There's something pulling at him, though. It has been this whole time – every time he allowed himself to close his eyes and think of another boy, another summer, another life. All he can remember from those twenty seven days is freckled cheeks and big hands and the hard press of Eli's mouth against his.

“He killed himself,” Derek says quietly. He's staring up at the ceiling, inventing patterns in that weird, gross popcorn texture all of the ceilings in the Haus have.

“What?” murmurs Dex, curled up against his side. He was supposed to be asleep, but, naturally, he isn't. “What are you talking about?”

If he doesn't tell him now, he knows that he never will. “Elijah. He, uh- he killed himself. That's what… that's what you're getting into.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Dex carefully pulls himself out and sits up on one elbow, looking very seriously right at Derek's face. Derek can't bring himself to make eye contact. He didn't want to start this conversation. He wishes there was a way to get out of it. He keeps staring straight up.

“I just- I don't want to trick you into thinking I'm gonna be good for you. Because I'm not. My own fucking best friend killed himself, okay, I have no idea what I might make you do.”

“Derek,” Dex whispers, and it's too much.

“Go to sleep, Dex. We can talk again in the morning.”

Dex obligingly lays back down, but this time he doesn't come nearly as close, doesn't tangle their bodies together like he had before. He sits up for a moment after a while to give them both some space. He's the only one who needs it.

Nursey, at least, is a deep sleeper.

“This isn't going to work,” Will says aloud into the darkness. The music swells in the background from Nursey's shitty phone speakers. The kettle drums are loud, and they pound at the inside of his chest like a heartbeat, tugging at some part of him that's been bitterly repressed for years.

He lays down and pulls Nursey's body flush against his; holds him close. They sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's gonna happen next in THE FINAL CHAPTER? why can't these boys just talk to each other? why do i love hurting the characters i care about the most? ¯\\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )_/¯


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE DOUBLE UPDATE!
> 
> i really wanted to make this better for all y'all but frankly i'm exhausted and ready to never work with chapters again because my writing stamina is nonexistent. so i'm actually... real sorry about that. sorry, guys. one day i'm gonna go in and make this way better, but who knows how long that'll take, so for now just take this disaster off of my hands.

Derek takes Dex home. There's the summer, and then school starts up again. They don't meet up again over the summer, but they talk. Derek talks to Chowder _more_ , but somehow that doesn't seem weird. What is weird is the way that Dex acts around him when they're back to Samwell.

It's _weird_. Derek once read a thesaurus when he was in middle school so he could add to his vocabulary, but he can still only come up with one word to describe the way Dex acts around him. He's acting _weird_. They still kiss, they still spend the nights in each others' beds, but something that was there during the summer is missing. Derek chalks it up to anticipation for the season and leaves it at that. The season starts, and he chalks it up to stress. Dex is fine. It's fine. He's fine.

 

“Does anybody know?” Chowder blurts out one day at lunch.

Fork halfway to his mouth, Derek freezes. “What are you talking about?”

“That you… you know. You and Dex.”

“I think, like, the whole team knows we're fucking, dude. We're kinda obnoxious about it.”

“No, I mean-” Chowder blushes furiously. “That you're in _love_.”

“We're not.” The fork goes into Derek's mouth. He chews his pasta, swallows it. His eyes are on his Astronomy textbook, on the distance between Earth and the Sun, 149,600,000,000 meters, fixing on the final zero at the end.

“Come on, Nursey. You two are my best friends. Don't think that just because everyone else is too thick to notice it that I wouldn't. I see the way you look at him.” He pauses for a second, and it's enough for him to put all of it together. “Does _he_ know?”

“Don't know what you're talking about, man.”

“Nursey...”

“I've got to get to class.” Derek stands abruptly and snaps the book shut, carrying his tray up to the front of the cafeteria. Chowder stares at his back, and he doesn't know what he should be thinking. After a moment he gives up. Those two will figure it out themselves, probably.

* * *

“I don't think I can do this again,” Dex confesses as they lay together in Derek's bed, slowly trying to steady their breathing.

Derek almost sits up, but decides that it isn't worth it. “Don't want to ruin what we've got goin', Dex?” he asks lightly. “Our perfectly dysfunctional friendship?”

“That's-” Dex clears his throat, closes his eyes for a second. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Salt wells up at the back of Derek's throat, and he bites at his lip to make it go away. It's funny, he thinks, that hurting yourself is the best way to distract yourself from the pain that's already deep inside of you; that melancholy that never really goes away.

“I-I don't want to make this mistake again.”

“Fine.”

“I'm glad you understand,” Dex says, delicately, like he knows how much this hurts.

(He doesn't.)

“Yeah,” Derek says quietly. “I get you all the way, Poindexter.”

He sighs and closes his eyes, and when Dex lifts up his hand to run his fingers through his hair, like a goodbye, he pretends to be asleep.

 

Dex is gone the next morning before Derek wakes up. He tells himself that he should be used to not expecting anything, but he still feels the familiar bitter ache deep in the pit of his stomach. Instead of going to his classes, he locks his door and listens to one of his old mix CDs from when he was in high school, just learning to cope with everything wrong with him. It's all annoying white boy music that his moms used to chirp him for listening to, but he's looking for the whiny masculine comfort he had tried finding in Dex the night before.

Instead of making him feel better, it makes him feel worse. Morrissey and Bob Dylan and Rivers Cuomo and Brian Wilson – the only thing he can feel is all of the disappointment he refuses to understand welling up inside of his chest. He reaches for the dog-eared copy of _The Catcher in the Rye_ he stole from the school library when he was fifteen and hopes that any of the passages he marked when he was younger and first feeling something would help him now.

Instead he traps himself in the last few pages; reads to himself over and over and over again, _"Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear. Allie, don't let me disappear."_ He feels like he's Holden, like he's vanishing into the darkness of the city he grew up in. Shapes and sounds cloud on the edges of his vision, the blur of a shadowy shape, the loud keening of a siren. He sees the way he imagines Elijah's face paled from the lack of blood, unkempt curls plastered to his forehead when they pull him from the water.

The longing to find himself burrows deep under his skin. He wishes he understood who he was without his childhood best friend in his life, and he wishes that he could find that with someone else. Who he was then is gone. That boy doesn't exist any longer.

 

Chowder comes to his door some time around noon to ask if he wants to get lunch. Nursey doesn't answer; doesn't even acknowledge the hesitant knocking. After two minutes, maybe five, he gets the message and goes down to eat alone, maybe; with Dex, maybe. Nursey tells himself that he can't care.

(He does, anyway.)

He sits down and writes, because he's feeling, and, besides, he owes Professor Ericsson, like, twelve poems, because he's shit at doing his homework. He manages three, and snippets of his own words bounce around inside of his head.

“My toes barely touched the ground,” he reads in a murmur to himself, his voice surprisingly strong and steady. “I felt salt in my mouth, on my tongue, stinging my eyes.”

He takes himself back to that time. He remembers that summer. He remembers driving up the coast to that tiny fishing village on the very tip of Maine, and he remembers wading into the ocean; the way the waves came in higher, crashing, falling all around them like the breath of God.

And he remembers more; the way the picturesque town looked silhouetted by the setting sun. The sound of their cheap flip flops clacking onomatopoeically down the quaint, narrow streets; power lines looping overhead like frosting on a wedding cake.

“ _We've got time,_ ” he remembers Eli saying, and he digs his fingernails painfully hard into the meat of his palm.

“ _As much as we could ever need,_ ” he had agreed, and his voice had trembled a little when he spoke, but whether it was from the cold, or from something else, he didn't know.

That was the summer before the winter night he came home from a game, sweaty and jubilant with victory, to a phone message from a number he didn't recognize. Eli's parents.

“ _We're sorry_ ,” they had said, sounding like they didn't care much either way. “ _We knew it was going to be hard for him, but not…_ ” 

(He had hung up right then. He didn't know what empty condolences they were going to offer, what lies they were going to tell, what excuses they were going to give him, but he did know that he didn't want to hear them.)

Derek puts Elijah's favorite song on, and he cries, and he cries, and he feels like he's going to be sick, maybe, but he doesn't stop crying. The music wraps around him, like it wants to comfort him, and the love spilling from every note overwhelms him.

He hates it. He doesn't deserve any of it.

As the song nears its end, it emanates something hopeful and real that he isn't sure he deserves anymore. He isn't sure if he ever did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done and i'm sobbing. i actually wrote this part before i wrote anything else and then i realized that there needed to be context. to which i replied "FUCK!" bc i hate providing context. but, yep. it's done and i didn't wear my glasses for any of this.  
> if you cried please airmail your tears to me. thx.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading y'all! comment/kudos to inflate my ego!


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